Safely handled Honor Defense Honor Guard pistol (courtesy thetruthaboutguns.com)

Hi Xxxx,

Thanks for your note.

The truth of the matter is that all firearms will discharge if handled abusively. That is true for any brand or model.

We believe that Honor Defense makes the best single stack 9mm pistols. We have tested internally and submitted the firearms for testing by independent labs.

The product exceeded all industry abusive handling tests and proven to be more accurate than other similar sized firearms.

Gary

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

93 COMMENTS

      • …which, with a Series 70 trigger, isn’t drop safe.

        It sounds like business assassination to me. Honor Guard isn’t handling it well though.

        • It is perfectly drop-safe with a Series 70 trigger. The original design worked for decades, but they made the Series 80s because too many stupid hicks insist on thumbing the hammer down on loaded chambers.

        • Damn my stupid hickiness, The first revolver I owned( age 14) was SA .22, I used that gun running trap line for years, old habits die hard. … Dad always said ” just use a club” but I caught a pretty good sized bobcat once, and clubbing that to death was exciting.

    • There was a report of an Honor Guard dropped discharge on the Glock forum in May.

      It looks credible. The man was very concerned, and eventually revealed his pistol was an Honor Guard. Read it… it is very scary stuff. He posted on the forum trying to understand how the gun could have gone off, comparing it to a Glock.

      https://www.glocktalk.com/threads/help-me-understand-what-keeps-a-glock-drop-safe.1664586/print

      If everyone knows about this already, well… more people should. Be safe.

      • This wants to go to the printer when I selected it. Just what I wanted, hardcopy .
        I was able to edit the URL and remove the /print at the end.

      • I’m not familiar with these guns. Are you saying that the safety is an option on this model, and with the safety ON you can’t replicate the AD?

        • Consistent with the market push for light triggers and as few safeties as possible, almost no one has reviewed the HG with external safety, including TFB/TFR & TTAG.

          I cannot get the safety model to discharge in the OFF position with comparable levels of mallet force.

          The safety appears to be one of the few on modern guns that actually does something to jam the sear up and hold the firing pin in place. Compare this to the Shield’s which seems to only keep the trigger bar forward, the gun only being kept safe by the usual sear spring and pin block.

    • Yes i own one and yes the drop safe talk is pure bs, i couldn’t get this gun to fire unintentionally with a friggen sledge hammer.

      • You would be wrong!! I own 2 and both of them are NOT drop safe, so they’ll be sitting in the gun safe and only be used for target practice

  3. How long will they be able to hold out untill they finally issue a recall? It seemed like a decent little gun but honestly If I was looking for another carry gun I would go with a brand that’s been out and proven for years.

    • How many years are you talking about? I’d define that as any decently-made revolver… drop my SP101, for instance, and all you’ll do is dent the floor.
      🤠
      P.S. don’t drop my gun. The antler grip inserts might get scuffed.

    • I doubt they can. This guns is all they sell. If they have to recall all of them, I’d think the company would go belly-up.

      I guess they chose the wrong model of gun to blatantly copy (or licence?).

    • “How long will they be able to hold out untill they finally issue a recall?”

      Honor is in a very tight spot on this.

      The company is welded to the design, and to admit it’s defective will likely sink the company.

      What I would *HOPE* Honor would do is immediately come up with some sort of fix for it, and produce the parts for it, and then announce a recall or ship the parts to the customers that want them, as soon as the parts are available.

      I hope some sharp gunsmiths take a look at the issue and offer Honor an engineering way forward on this. Ignoring it won’t make it go away…

      • Dude it was bull feces period, the gun is an anvil so likely some other maker wanted to kill it off,

  5. They don’t have the financial resources to handle a recall, or reengineer the product to be safer. Sales will fall steeply, there will be a lawsuit along the way, and in not too much time…Honor Defense will be bankrupt and out of business. Its a good case study to be mindful of before you buy something from a small manufacturer.

    • So don’t crash your car like a jackass, and it won’t matter if your airbags don’t work. Hur hur.

      Seriously, what kind of response is that?

      • Well, my airbag was “recalled’ two years ago, but the Bavarian Motor Werks don’t have a new one to give me. So I just have a nice recall letter and an old Takata airbag.

        • Hang on, help is coming. I know, it doesn’t belong here, but my BMW’s airbags were also recalled over 2 years ago, and the recall was just completed, they’ll get to yours soon, now. This is a good example of a recall scuttling a company, air bags were a barely noticeable part of Takata industries, but I’m pretty sure their recall bankrupted the company.

      • I can create a scenario that your airbags won’t save you in a car crash. Does that mean the airbags don’t work and the car is not a good car ?
        No one seems to be addressing the real issues and no one is asking for actual Data and just ready to crucify .
        1) The gun was tested to SAAMI Z299-1996 which translates being dropped from 4 feet on all 6 sides – this includes the back of the slide.
        2) Honor Guard Passed at 5.49 foot lbs of force. Since it is known 4 feet = 1.2192 meters. Weight of Honor Guard is 22 ounces then Impact speed is 4.89 m/s . This yields 7.45 joules of energy or 5.49 foot lbs.
        3) No one can tell me how much force was applied to the Honor Guard using the mallet test. This is why we have specifications. What force was used by the Mallet? I am guessing over double by what I have seen on the internet.
        4) It took Concealed Carry dot com 22 tries at 7 to 8 feet to be able to get the honor guard to go off one time. They tried to reproduce the results and could not. I calculate they used twice as much pressure as called out by the SAAMI specification for testing firearms. At 7.5 feet I calculate 13.98 joules = 10.31 ft lbs.
        5) Was this same mallet test applied to the Shield pistol, Glock 43, etc . to show that comparison?
        The real question, are the current SAAMI specifications for firearms drop test safety sufficient ? Yes?No?

    • …or stand up quickly and accidentally catch the back of your carry gun on a table.
      …or drop anything that might hit the back of your carry gun.
      …or wear one in public where something could hit the back of your carry gun.

      • A couple months ago I was shooting a video and it was windy and my tripod and camera fell over and smacked me, you guessed it, directly on the rear of my CCW’s slide. Now, it wasn’t a particularly hard impact (though it broke the lens cover on my camera and was pretty loud) but it does go to show that silly, random little things like that can happen and it doesn’t make much sense to carry a firearm that can’t be trusted to shrug off an everyday sort of bump.

        • https://www.glocktalk.com/threads/help-me-understand-what-keeps-a-glock-drop-safe.1664586/print

          It happened to someone this Spring. Here is a credible report of an actual Honor Defense dropped discharge. The man’s name is Bob… read the thread, very scary. He sent the pistol back to Honor. They knew about this. They know about it. They are in denial mode… and the best we can hope for is someone doesnt get killed or maimed.

          Read the thread. The guy is reluctant to slander the maker by prematurely identifying it, so he asks questions. He describes the discharge (fkn yikes). Then he says he alerted Honor and sent the gun back.

          Be safe.

        • Man you democrats believe anything liars come up with, this drop safe crap was exactly that BS!!!!!!!!!!!!

  7. I don’t know? Here’s a funny story, had to go to courthouse yesterday, court was in session, walked to the metal checker, did my pocket dump , went through checker, turned to balif and said ” huh these plastic guns don’t register, cool”. The bailiff, come unglued, it was funny.

    • Did something similar in Mexico some years ago. Just before boarding the bus a security guy was wanding me on my left side. Being less than in full-control of my smart-ass I told him: “Mi arma esta en el otro lado” (My gun is on the other side).

      Fortunately, the guy had a great sense of humor.

  8. I want to see the impact test on both a Glock 43 and the m&p shield. I bet they will pass, but good to show honor guard their deficit.

    • Y’know, that probably is necessary at this point. If the vaunted G43 and Shield were to fail the same test, that’d be saying something. And on the other hand, if they clearly and easily pass the same test, well, that’s saying something that needs to be heard.

    • I don’t need to see a test done. I know both already pass. Between the P320 and now this gun, if someone could get those other guns to fire when dropped, we’d all know about it by now. The bigger you are, the bigger the target, and Glock and Smith and Wesson are giants.

  10. I said it on another thread and I’ll say it again. If you look at Honor Defense’s Facebook comments they are EXTREMELY defensive when it comes to their product. They keep beating the drum of “we make the best product ever and if you don’t like it stfu.”

    Other companies I see say something to the effect of “l am sorry to hear about your experience, please message us” or some sort of diplomatic response.

    I get sticking up for your product but hostility doesn’t really earn points with the general populace.

    • They’ve been this way since day one, a loud mouth frat boy, asking for a well-deserved beatdown. And it has arrived, to be delivered by the market at large.

      The product is meh at best. They want stupid money for it, like they’re some storied manufacturer. The name is cheesy at most generous, sadly attention seeking in professional analysis. Most indicative is their behavior, and response to these incidents – BS and CYA, all the while tap-dancing and singing their own praises.

    • It’s the Apple defense… “if our super wonderful product doesn’t work, the stupid user must be doing it wrong.”

      • Except my iPhone won’t explode when I drop it.

        …that’s the Galaxy Note 7 you’re thinking of. 🙂

    • You are absolutely correct. The number one complaint about their pistol, I’d wager, is the Godawful huge HONOR GUARD logo on the slide.

      You don’t have to read comment on it for very long before that very issue is mentioned. I emailed them about it—-told them it was the one factor keeping me from buying one, and asked if they had given any thought to changing it.

      They basically told me THEY like it and that’s that.

      Cutting off their noses to spite their faces…

      • If you look at the archives, you’ll see this very point when they released this turd into the wild. This was brought up, and the dipswitch-eh-hole running the company told us how wrong we were.

        No surprise, and good riddance to mediocre, over-priced rubbish.

    • Thats because the general public are koolaid guzzling idiots who believe everything they hear. Think not? Millions vote democrat and democrats are scum.

  11. Let me get this straight.

    Honor Defense’s defense is that they and other people tested it and it was A-OK.

    But Patrick can test it in his garage and repeat a failure that he has video proof of.

    But he and Honor Defense customers should F off cause their pistol is great and their mom says it’s the best.

    Oh, and if you look at Patrick’s video you’ll see a few notable YouTube firearms channels commenting on this as well… Honor Defense SHOULD be a tad bit concerned about…

  12. I see an opportunity for a consumer based testing and certification group here. A UL for guns of sort. From the previous blog it seemed rather easy to force a discharge. That doesn’t jive with HD’s statement at all.

    • I agree with you; some sort of UL for guns. Somebody ought to be concerned about developing a rigorous uniform procedure for testing drop-safety. Perhaps other safety features. And, the procedures ought to be versioned; e.g., the Semi-Auto standard for 2017, 2020, 2021, . . . Each time they come up with a more sophisticated test they publish the protocol with a version date.

      Then, manufacturers could back-test their old models and say, e.g., “The G19 Series 3 meets the GUL-Drop-Test Standard 2020 as well as 2017.”

      Manufacturers would compete on reputation. E.g., if Glock undertakes to engineer to the best technology and maintain older models with upgrade kits then their products will sell better than Sig’s; or, vice versa. We customers would pay for that; or not.

      When we buy a used gun we could ascertain that – e.g., the G19 still meets the standard for 2020; and, that an upgrade kit is available for $123 that will meet the 2021 standard. Maybe we would be satisfied with our prospective purchase meeting the 2020 standard and forego the upgrade kit.

  13. TTAG should set up a rig where you can incrementally apply force to the back of a slide, and try out the Honor and a bunch of other leading striker fired guns to see how many Newtons of force each gun requires to fire, if at all. They should then list these ratings along with the force of some common impacts (like falling from certain heights), or dropping other objects from specific heights.

    • Agreed.

      Such articles would be a hell of a lot more interesting than seeing yet another random shotgun slug video.

  15. If their sales numbers drop, then they’ll get the message that they need to “adjust” their response. You don’t stay in this business that long with that kind of customer service. Money talks

  16. While I respect my fellow gun owners, this drop fire shit is getting out of hand, many of you are acting like millennial’s or my be millennial’s for that matter. Does it occur to you who the cost of this is reflected on ? There is also the matter of what comes next, Somebody is “Triggered” [Pun intended] because their pistol wont float Awwwww I dropped my pistol in the river and it didn’t float ! How dare that Company make this piece of junk. ? maybe an astronaut will cry because his gun didn’t work right in zero gravity !
    My 1.5 cents worth of advice………… stop worrying, go shooting, don’t drop your pistol , if ya do, expect something bad to happen and last but not least Buy a lanyard !!!!

    • Given the number of tragic boating accidents I’ve read about over the last couple of years, I think we’re counting on them not floating.

      O2

    • Lanyards still allow the pistol to hit the ground. And no one intends to drop a pistol, it is by definition an accident and really can’t be forseen.

    • In general I am all about piling on the snowflake generation, but a firearm can drop on the ground for all sorts of reasons outside the control of the user. This should not result in a situation in which you or someone else in the room gets a hollow point through the chest or head. Is it REALLY too much to ask that a loaded firearm not go boom when trigger is not pulled? We are not talking about dropping the thing of a friggin rooftop, but from waist height. Are our standards that low?

      • Whoa… who are you? I’ve been posting here for years using this name, very surprising to see someone else doing the same. Funny coincidence? Alcoholic blackout and I just don’t remember writing this? Bizarro-universe bleeding through? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!?!?

        • Shit-stirrers have been known to ‘impersonate’ commenters here in TTAG.

          This one was sloppy about it, lack of caps, etc…

    • Nobody us goig to get hurt by an accidental sinking, unless the Honor Defense hits a rock on the bottom and fires upward.
      Honor Defense is not long for this world. The instant someone actually gets injured this way, they will lose a multimillion dollar lawsuit that will bankrupt them. The issue has been demonstrated multiple times, and they refuse to acknowledge it or take action. That “don’t care” attitude really goes over well with juries and is $$$ for punitive damages.

    • Maybe it’s just a millennial thing, but I’d like to keep my dick if something falls off a shelf onto the back of the slide while appendix carrying.

    • Yeah… No. A firearm should be safe under most foreseeable handling situations that don’t actuate the trigger. A firearm discharging because it’s dropped on a hard surface from waist height is an unacceptable design flaw and is stupidly dangerous. In the real world, you can’t predict how a firearm will be handled. This sort of silliness is on the level of the Nambu discharging when squeezed. The company failing to own up to it is absurdly stupid and dangerous.

  18. dear honor guard,

    I was very interested in your companies pistol when it hit the market, feels good in the hand, easy to handle, not bad looking, not too bulky ect ect ect.

    I procrastinated over and over again about sealing the deal and buying one of your arms, however I never did…. thankfully. accidentally dropping a firearm from a holster is not what I, or many other firearm owners would consider abuse, it’s a daily possibility for anyone who carrys a firearm THAT THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO TRUST WITH THEIR LIFE!!!!

    that being said, your pistol has been proven to endanger the life of anyone who carrys your pistol, and the innocent lives around them every day, ignorance by your company to make a dollar is an absolute disgrace, and I personally will make every effort to stop my fellow people of the gun from purchasing any of your dangerous firearms.

    a mandatory recall should be issued, and every one of them redesigned to be safe, it would be far cheaper than the many, many lawsuits that can be forecast in your future.

    Thank you for your consideration,
    Concerned Consumers EVERYWHERE!

  19. Glad I never heard of this brand before (prior to the last few articles on TTAG) and wasn’t going to buy one anyway.

    It will soon be the “best” 9mm that nobody can buy because they are out of business

  21. Someone should look into what kind of liability insurance (dis)Honor Defense has. After that statement, this is damned near a SURE BET on a lawsuit, as long as you’re willing to take a bullet.

  22. Wow a line for line copy of a Shield(that costs more) that I have NEVER seen in a shop. Quite the attitude boyz…and people rag on Taurus(deservedly so). I’ll stick to my 709…

  23. Maybe they should all have external safeties. DA/SA have a heavy enough trigger in DA that they should be safe in a drop situation. The perfect firearm that cannot be made to fire without the trigger being pulled is not made, so spend your money accordingly. If you do not want the external safety, it would be up to you to remove it.

  26. Yeah, I’ve read a lot of bad replies from companies over the years but that just might be a new one. Well, this is what it looks like when a company slowly loses its hold before going out of business. And no, neither glocks nor sigs will discharge unless the trigger is intentionally pulled. You could knock one around all day, use it to hammer nails if you wanted and drop it from a 10-story building, it won’t make a difference. They aren’t even technically loaded until the trigger is pulled slightly more than halfway, but that’s old news. That gun wouldn’t even be legal for sale in california, everything added to the roster has to pass drop/abuse tests.

  27. Kindly correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t this kind of defect not something tested for by the US? I think that was one reason why Sig’s recall wasn’t mandatory: The US doesn’t care if dropping the gun in such a way causes a discharge.

    • The .mil P320s don’t have the same problem. SIG was aware of the possible issue and decided not to add the .mil trigger pack as standard on commercial weapons.

  28. “When an honest man, who is mistaken, is confronted with the truth. He will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest”
    Patrick Henry

    • ^Thnx for that!

      I love a good quote.
      And especially one that is used appropriately.
      Well played, sir.

  31. I’m gonna echo serge on this. Dropping a gun is by definition an accident unless the gun is being drop tested or someone is being pretty darn dumb. It’s also a foreseeable accident. Therefore the gun should, when properly maintained, be “drop safe”.

    The crowd that says “Don’t drop your gun” well, there must be a hell of a lot of stupid people out there because this comment is fairly common (not necessarily here on TTAG but I’ve seen it elsewhere).

    I’m going to put out something that I’ve said before and add this “Honor Guard” thing to it. Here’s the fact: A great many people who carry a gun really are not that bright about it. [The truth hurts. Sorry.] They haven’t really thought through it and they just figure it’s some sort of magic talisman. Call them “keyboard commandos” or “mall ninjas” or whatever, the thread that ties them together is that they say stupid shit that reveals they don’t often engage their brain.

    The most alert people can still be ambushed. Crazy shit happens. People who are not really that close to you can change direction and close distance very fast. Professional criminals know their business and they know how to take advantage of someone who’s temporarily distracted. This is how robbery boys earn a living and the ones who are bad at it are in jail, dead or in the ICU.

    There are A LOT of situations where someone can get close enough that drawing your gun and getting it into the fight is a touch-and-go proposition. If you make a misjudgment in these cases you can end up in a struggle over the gun or it can be knocked out of your hand. In that situation do you really want one that has a pretty high probability of going bang when it hits the concrete/floor? Probably not.

  33. “The truth of the matter is that all firearms will discharge if handled abusively…”

    Utter horseshit or, at very best, intellectually dishonest on a grand scale. There are plenty of guns that do not fire when dropped at any angle from chest-height, and that’s what we’re talking here. We’re NOT talking about taking a blowtorch to the safety mechanism and drilling holes in stuff. We’re talking about dropping the damn thing. This guy sounds like car company mouthpieces when they learn that their fuel tanks explode in a collision but before they start the recall. “The truth of the matter is that all cars will explode if…” NO.

    $$$ over lives, just what we need from a company manufacturing items we’re supposed to depend on to save ours.

  35. I just hit the rear of the slide of my Glock 43 with a rubber mallet 23 times after loading a shell that I had unloaded the bullet and powder from, and it didn’t go off like your pistol has shown to do.
    Funny thing, I will stick with what I believe is the best made single stack .9mm.. And leave yours where it belongs, in the backroom of my local gun store, because unlike you they won’t sell what has been shown in video form to be an unsafe firearm!

  36. Will the government get involved is this defect causes deaths in much the same way as the government got involved with the GM ignition switch defect.

  37. This defect could prove fatal if someone gets in a struggle over this gun. It is not uncommon for a law enforcement officer to get in a struggle over their gun. I hope no member of law enforcement carries this since it not only endangers the officer but also any innocent bystander in the path of a potentially lethal discharge.

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